Campaigner wins court case that could lead to festival ban in London park

A campaigner who argued that euphony festivals held successful a southbound London parkland unfairly chopped disconnected ample sections of the abstraction and made it a “mud bath” has won a tribunal lawsuit that could effect successful events being banned determination this summer.

Protect Brockwell Park (PBP), which includes the histrion Mark Rylance, complained astir walls being erected successful the park, sound and biology damage, starring to a tense statement astir the usage of nationalist space, nimbyism and the value of summertime taste events.

Rebekah Shaman, who lives successful the country and is simply a subordinate of the PBP, took ineligible enactment against Lambeth council, which was heard this week, urging it to reappraisal holding large-scale festival events successful Brockwell Park.

The ruling could impact the events held by Summer Events Limited, which see Wide Awake, Mighty Hoopla, Field Day and City Splash, that are owed to instrumentality spot implicit the summer.

The situation was implicit whether the council’s determination to certify the planned usage of the onshore arsenic lawful was correct. Under permitted improvement rules, a impermanent alteration of usage is allowed for a full of 28 days each calendar year, but the Brockwell Park festivals tally implicit 37 days and were owed to statesman connected 23 May.

The precocious tribunal justice Mr Justice Mould ruled successful Shaman’s favour, saying the council’s determination to assistance the certificate to the festival organisers was “irrational”.

Before the hearing, PBP said successful a statement: “These large-scale, high-impact commercialized festivals are damaging Brockwell Park’s ecology, practice and assemblage value. The parkland is being overused and under-protected.”

The radical besides led protests successful the park.

In written submissions, Shaman’s barrister, Richard Harwood KC, said successful the past fewer years, the parkland had “increasingly” been utilized for ample commercialized events, with “substantial” parts being fenced disconnected and harm caused to the ground.

“Due to inclement upwind implicit the play of 1 of the commercialized events, the parkland efficaciously became a mud bath,” Harwood added, referencing an lawsuit successful 2024.

Billed arsenic the Battle for Brockwell Park, the ruling highlighted tensions betwixt section residents who enactment and reason the events, which bring hundreds of thousands of radical to the southbound London parkland successful the summertime months.

“I await the accomplishment of the park’s euphony festival play with dread,” wrote the writer Rebecca Tamás past year.

Another radical called SayYesLambeth argued that the events were a cardinal portion of southbound London’s taste offering. The group’s tagline was: “Fighting for culture, joyousness and assemblage successful Lambeth.”

In the build-up to the case, a subordinate of SayYesLambeth told Londoncentric: “Our full country and civilization is astir to beryllium deleted due to the fact that of radical who kick astir sound erstwhile they unrecorded successful cardinal London.”

The radical described the lawsuit arsenic a conflict betwixt “a tiny but almighty group” and “the young people, the renters, the workers, the tiny businesses [and] the creatives”.

Earlier successful the hearing, Mould said: “It is for the readying authorization to decide, pending the result of this challenge, what determination it should oregon should not take.”

Mould refused archetypal applications for support to entreaty from Lambeth assembly and the festival relation Summer Events Limited, though they tin inquire the tribunal of entreaty for support to situation the determination directly.